Gravity isn’t science fiction either, so there is no reason to exclude Apollo 13. In fact, they are almost the same genre (Gravity is a fictional survival movie while Apollo 13 is a historical survival movie).
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Dunno if this counts as “inaccurate,” but there’s one shot where you can see a sliver of real sky through the set and it’s apparent that they’re on the Vomit Comet rather than outer space.
We shot an impacter at comet Tempel 1 back in 2005, I believe, and there were a number of observations associated with that mission which NASA failed to predict – most importantly, what appeared to be a pre-impact flash, suggesting that the object was highly electrified. That raises the possibility that those jets are a bit more like blow-torches than flowing gases.
In a general sense, cometary theory has run into a lot of problems, so it is surprising to hear people discuss cometary theory – with confidence – as though it is reflective of observations. I have not seen the new Cosmos yet, but my concern is that our culture seems to have somewhat disconnected from reality when it comes to beliefs about space. There is a tradition of assuming that space is like what we see down here on Earth in certain regards – especially in regards to electrical neutrality.
People would be wise to keep an open mind on whether or not electricity flows through space, as there are numerous indications that it probably does. In particular, the widespread observation of magnetic fields suggests an electrical current cause. The two tend to go hand-in-hand. But, what we’ve seen in the Astrophysical Journal is a tendency to assume that where electricity is observed in space, that it must be the result of other more fundamental forces. It’s important that people realize that this is a worldview which contains assumptions about what will be observed. It is also simply possible that the universe is fundamentally electrodynamic. We should keep that possibility in the backs of our minds as we read press releases, as the astrophysicists and cosmologists appear to be unwilling to ask the question.
For an explanation of the various problems, and a rebuttal informed by observations of laboratory plasma physics, please see The Electric Comet documentary on YouTube. I know that people here on BoingBoing love them some science, but my hope is that people are not simply falling in love with the first theory they run into. That would be a shame, because there is an alternative explanation for comets which is just as rational, if not more, than the one you are already familiar with. Established cometary theory seems somewhat ad hoc by comparison with the plasma physics explanation.
Comets are an important clue to the universe’s mechanics due to their dynamic nature, so we can to some extent use cometary theories to judge paradigms/cosmologies.
I could explain more, but the video is actually very well done.
And Deep Impact had a black president!
But I have a problem with anything blowing up just before hitting the earth or in low earth orbit (Oblivion) which would result in a firestorm. Look at what happened with those Russian meteors and their sonic booms. Way too many movies have people on the planet surface watchingt the fireworks, ignoring the fact they are about to experience a Tunguska Event.
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Deep Impact > Armageddon
Dante’s Peak > Volcano
Mission To Mars > Red Planet
Target > Walmart
Lowes > Home Depot
The movies in column A were, I think, more accurate (though still “movie accurate”), but the ones in Column B were more fun. I like Big Dumb Fun on the big screen. Character development, great story, I can take that in on a small screen. Big screen and big speakers are for stuff blowin’ up real loud. Spectacle! And stuff like this:
Mission To Mars has the distinction of being the worst movie I’ve ever seen in a full theater. I saw it at a Saturday midnight showing in Queens, and the crowd not only made it bearable, they made it memorable. People were already hooting with derision by the time Tim “I Am Making A Noble Gesture” Robbins took off his helmet in hard vacuum, and went full Rocky Horror shortly thereafter. I still remember some guy shouting “Get the fuck outta here!” when the ridiculously bad CGI Alien wept its single tear.
Tried for pathos and found delicious hathos.
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No shortage of scientific errors in 2001, most of them related to space stuff, though some are probably symbollic, and some are just people getting the story wrong (HAL didn’t cheat at chess or make a mistake, it lied, for example).
Something that distracts me with Gravity is that the stars are too bright for the shots where sun-lit things look normal. They shouldn’t even be registering on the picture, and the characters themselves would be very unlikely to see them at all.
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But we never saw how much gravity there was in the centrifuge on 2001. It could have delivered 0.01g and still be consistent with most of the visuals in the movie.
Well, we’ve got form. We loves us some volcanoes to build shit on.
0.01g might be consistent with the scenes of them just sitting around, but it wouldn’t be consistent with the first shot inside the Discovery showing Dave Bowman running around in a circle for exercise–at 0.01g he would shoot up to the ceiling every time his feet impacted the ground!
All of 'em. 
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I’d vote for him! As long as Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren weren’t running, that is.
Running with the rotation, he would generate his own gravity. The real inconsistency is with the shot where you see the centrifuge rotation as they climb out at the hub. That looks like a rev every five seconds or so.
Europa Report did a lot of consulting to be as accurate as possible. Excellent movie made even better by the use of models in lieu of a CGI budget.
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